Yellow Springs Village is not your ordinary hustling little back woods town.  No children laugh in the square, no cars drive by on its roads, and no coal trucks run up and down it’s inclined planes from coal shaft at mountain top to railroad service in the valley below…. at least not if you survey the village with your eyes open.  But when you close them and envision the town as it was once one hundred years ago before it was abandoned, it has all the life of any early 1900’s coal town.

Walking along the Appalachian Trail through a section known as St. Anthony’s wilderness, you pass through the remains of Yellow Springs Village and the piles of rubble that were once stone foundations.  You walk by abandoned, dried up wells that now have logs laid across the top to keep curious passers by from stumbling in them unaware.  And if you’re feeling adventurous, you can walk up the side of the mountain to the old coal shaft, the stone tower that stood just at it’s Northern most rim, and follow the incredible incline plane down the either side of the mountain and imagine what it would’ve been like to push or pull a coal truck over the rough, rocky, makeshift access road to and from the mine.  It’s an incredible journey back in time – and a shock to the computer softened brain to realize that this was built and run all by work worn hands and horse strong backs; it reminds of what “man power” truly means and that at one time it was the hard labor of industrious men who defined, built, and ran this country.